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diorkyeom · 7 months

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‘✷’ : CHAPTER THREE “cotton fluffy smiles”

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chapter word count: 5.9k+ (idk why but they keep getting longer and longer...)

chapter warnings: swearing

summary: "lately, seokmin had come to a realisation. joshua hong, seokmin thought, was a little bit of an enigma." - in which seokmin has known joshua for years, but he's always been a bit of a mystery to him. and as the days go by, he finds himself falling further and further for the enigmatic man, wanting to find out who the real Joshua Hong is behind his polite smiles and warm eyes and sweet words.

notes: if i had a nickel for every time i've had characters have deep conversations late at night on benches surrounded by nature, i'd be able to make money out of this whole fanfic writing thing

It may be a Monday, but Seokmin swore that his head was still pounding with a phantom hangover from the Friday night two weeks ago.

Or—no. Maybe it wasn’t the hangover. Maybe it was something else.

Someone else.

Because, oh boy. Ever since that Game Night, the surge of Joshua-ness in Seokmin’s life had seemed to increase.

It was odd how, two months ago, Joshua had simply been Jeonghan’s Bestie™ as he had been for years, nothing more than the polite and sweet man who had seamlessly entered their group and labelled himself as the lovely gentleman. Seokmin had been rather content keeping it that way. He hadn’t known any different, after all.

But now, everything had changed.

Even this early on a Monday morning, while at work, Seokmin was thinking about him.

Not only was Seokmin still seeing Joshua at every other turn, he also couldn’t get him out of his brain. Couldn’t stop thinking about Joshua’s soft and bright eyes and the curl of his lips and the way his voice could be so gentle and so mischievous at the same time. Couldn’t stop thinking of the ways that Joshua had looked at him, eyes flashing with something before dissolving sweetly, like cotton candy, always barely decipherable but still most definitely there.

Joshua was very cotton soft, Seokmin mused thoughtfully. Everything about him was gentle. It was like a cotton wrap, fluffy and soft but protecting something underneath. Something even prettier, and sometimes, sometimes, Seokmin thought he could see it, whenever Joshua’s eyes twinkled when he looked at him. Maybe. Underneath his cotton fluffy smile.

Seokmin blinked himself out of his haze of Joshua thinking, looking at his students bent over the worksheets he’d given them, and sighed. He took the pen he’d been nervously chewing out of his mouth.

This was unacceptable. The next time he saw Joshua, he was going to scold him for somehow managing to invade his every waking thought. Definitely.

A beat.

Seokmin went back to chewing his pen.

───────────── ‘✷,

Seokmin groaned, walking over to Soonyoung's bed and face planting into the mattress.

The owner of said mattress didn't even look up from his phone, absentmindedly rubbing Seokmin's back in an attempt at being consoling. "What did you do now?"

Seokmin mumbled something intelligible, and Soonyoung hummed in sympathy.

"I see."

"No, you don't," Seokmin whined, moving his head to the side so he was no longer suffocating himself in Soonyoung's sheets. "He's constantly in my head! I can't get him out."

"Oho, boy troubles?" Soonyoung said, lips twitching upwards even as he stayed glued to his phone. "Just confess, Seokmin. It's time you stopped being a chicken."

Seokmin just groaned again. “You don’t even know who the guy is. And it’s not like that.”

“Well, I know you,” Soonyoung returned, “and you’re a chicken. Maybe today’s the day you finally man up and ask the guy out, you know?”

“I don’t like him! He’s just in my head and I want him out.”

“Do you really, though?” Soonyoung said teasingly, and chuckled when Seokmin whined even louder. “You gonna tell me who the guy is?”

There was a rustling sound, and Seokmin peeked his head up to look at Soonyoung, ears red. “It’s no one.”

Soonyoung finally looked away from his phone, looking down at Seokmin. And then he smiled, tilting his head. “Cool name. Well, I dunno what you want me to say, Seokmin. If you don’t like him, then what? Want me to ask Jihoon to kill the guy for you?”

“No!” Seokmin scrambled into a sitting position. “Don’t do that!” And then, more curiously, “Can Jihoon hyung actually kill people if you ask him to?”

Soonyoung laughed. “Maybe. You’ll have to ask him.”

Seokmin muttered something to that, and promptly keeled over to faceplant into the mattress again. Soonyoung simply took another look at him before going back to his phone.

The sun was setting, and the sky was a comfortable warm colour, not too blinding and not too dark, casting orangeish light into the room. Somewhere outside, a child screamed. It was the perfect sort of atmosphere for the two roommates, one of them peacefully scrolling on their phone and the other having a mild crisis into the mattress.

After a moment, Seokmin lifted his head. “Hyung.”

“Wait.” Soonyoung snapped his head upwards suddenly, eyes wide. “Shit. I have a bunch of emails I need to respond to by tonight.”

“What’s your opinion of—wait, where are you going? Hyung! Hyung, I’m tryna ask you a question!”

Soonyoung didn’t even look back as he leapt off the bed, scrambling to find his laptop. Seokmin pouted, watching his roommate shuffle through his stuff and then kept talking anyway.

"Hey, what's your opinion of Joshua hyung?"

"Did you just 'hey' me?" Soonyoung said, but it was said in a tone that showed he wasn't really listening to Seokmin. "Where the hell has my goddamn laptop gone?"

Seokmin watched him, shifting on the bed so that he was sitting cross-legged, tilting his head. "Didn't Mingyu break your laptop a couple of days ago?"

Soonyoung paused, eyes wide. "Oh no." He scrambled to find his phone. "Has that little fucker managed to get it repaired yet? I swear, if he hasn't—"

"What's your opinion of Joshua hyung?" Seokmin repeated, but Soonyoung already had his phone to his ear and was not paying the slightest bit of attention to him.

"Mingyu? Mingyu! Where the shit is my laptop? Huh? What do you mean you lost it? Please tell me you at least managed to get it repaired before losing it. Wh—why did you let Junhui touch my stuff?"

Seokmin rolled his eyes before sticking out his bottom lip, pouting over the fact that Soonyoung was apparently more preoccupied with looking for his laptop than answering his question. Granted, the laptop was a little bit more important, but Mingyu lost stuff all the time. Wonwoo had probably hidden it somewhere in their shared apartment for safekeeping until Soonyoung remembered he even needed it and called for them.

"Wonwoo! You have my laptop?"

Soonyoung sounded relieved, and Seokmin shrugged internally. See. He was right.

But it was evident that Soonyoung wasn't going to be listening to him, so he slid off the elder's bed and went to his own room, trying to consider what his own opinion of Joshua hyung was.

───────────── ‘✷,

None of the people in their friend group worked in the same school as Seokmin.

None of them were teachers, anyway, so it would have been weird, but his school was near the various coffee shops that their group frequented, so whenever Seokmin finished work and decided to grab a coffee and some pastries before going home, there was almost always going to be someone who walked into the cafe a few minutes after him.

This time, that person happened to be Minghao.

Minghao spotted Seokmin sitting in a booth near the corner, and nodded and waved at him in greeting. Seokmin waved back, grinning, and sipped his coffee as Minghao ordered his own drink before sitting down opposite him.

“How are you?” Seokmin asked brightly, hands curled around his coffee cup like he was a little child.

Minghao simply groaned in response, propping his elbow up on the table. “Exhausted. Hoshi hyung has been texting me constantly, asking for tips on how to ‘properly word an acceptance email’. Like I’ll know how to write one.”

Seokmin laughed. “That sounds like something he’d do, though. Hyung’s weird like that.”

“You’re telling me,” Minghao remarked drily, smiling politely and thanking the server who brought him his milk tea and plate of cookies. “He was blowing up my phone the entire morning.”

"Only the morning?" Seokmin asked. "What, did you finally give in to his spamming?"

"No, I blocked him."

Seokmin blinked, and then laughed, nodding understandingly. "Best choice. He's gonna pester me to get you to unblock him when I get home, though."

Minghao smiled, that small smile where his smile lines deepened and his eyes twinkled. "I regret nothing."

There was a brief respite in conversation as Minghao stirred his drink and took a careful sip. Seokmin hummed thoughtfully, staring into the distance before snapping his gaze back to Minghao, who was still drinking his tea.

“What’s your opinion of Joshua hyung?”

Minghao choked, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Wh—so suddenly?”

“I’m full of surprises,” Seokmin chirped, and waited until Minghao finished coughing to start speaking again. “So, what is your opinion of him?”

“Why are you asking me?” Minghao asked, and then looked behind him as if this was a prank. There was only one other person having coffee at five in the evening, an old lady who was staring at the teaspoon her coffee had come with as if it had somehow offended her. “And why do I feel like you were waiting to interrogate me?”

“I wasn’t waiting for you specifically,” Seokmin said, shrugging. “Anyone would have done.”

“Gee, thanks, Seokmin.”

Seokmin waved his hands. “You’re still not answering my question though! What do you think about Joshua hyung?”

“I don’t know,” Minghao said, mildly confused and mildly exasperated, like he was dealing with a child’s random changes of conversation topics. “He’s a good person? Nice, and good at listening.”

Seokmin frowned thoughtfully. “Hm.”

He stared off into the distance, and Minghao observed him curiously before shaking his head and turning back to his coffee.

This was the thing, though. No one had much to say about Joshua, did they? Granted, Seokmin had only been able to ask Minghao (seeing as how Soonyoung had been incredibly rudely ignoring him in favour of finding his laptop) but he was sure that every response to his question was going to be much the same as Minghao's.

But, just to make sure, Seokmin turned to him and asked another question.

"What's your opinion on Mingyu?"

"An idiot," Minghao replied immediately. "Full of himself. Adorably annoying." He eyed Seokmin oddly. "Why are you asking? Again?"

Seokmin made his eyes as wide and as innocent as possible. "Nothing! I just wanna know how you feel about our dear friends."

Minghao pursed his lips, disbelieving, giving Seokmin his signature dirty look. The cookie crumbs around his mouth kind of dampened the effect, but Seokmin's smile turned sheepish anyway.

"You're plotting something," Minghao said finally. "Aren't you?"

“What? I’m not! Nothing’s wrong,” Seokmin said. He grinned as brightly as possible. Minghao looked at him suspiciously for a few more moments, and so he dropped the grin and leaned forward. “Do you have anything else to say about Joshua hyung, though?” he asked curiously. “Like, is that it?”

Instead of answering, Minghao just continued to eye him, lips pursed. “Why would I have anything to say about him?” He narrowed his eyes. “Did you say something to him? Did he say something to you?”

Seokmin shook his head rapidly. “No! I was just curious, you know? I haven’t talked to him that much, that’s all.”

Minghao folded his hands on top of the table, and suddenly Seokmin felt like he was the one being interrogated. “And what made you think that I had?”

He shrugged. “Just asking.” He quirked a grin. “I told you, anyone would have done. I’m just wondering what everyone else thinks of him, ‘cause to me he’s only Jeonghan’s housemate.”

“Really?” Minghao looked like he was going to say more, before simply giving a smile. “Okay.”

And then he promptly changed the subject, so fast that Seokmin had whiplash and was left blinking dumbly before picking up Minghao’s new conversation thread a few seconds later. Minghao's eyes were gleaming, looking like he’d gleaned interesting new information out of him and, not wanting to find out what exactly Minghao had thought he’d extracted from him, Seokmin decided to go with it.

Minghao had given him an answer enough, anyway. Seokmin had half his brain focused on Minghao’s rant on how the failures of humanity were affecting his ability to buy eggs while the other half was still thinking about what he’d said. Contrary to popular belief, Seokmin could multitask, thank you very much. To an extent.

But it was interesting, the way Minghao had described him, because the answer was so… boring. Joshua felt more than just nice, more than just a good person, but even for Seokmin, that was all he was able to say about him.

Surely, though, surely there was more to Joshua than just being a nice guy.

───────────── ‘✷,

"Good morning, Seokmin. To what do I owe the pleasure of a phone call from you on a Tuesday morning?"

Instead of answering, Seokmin asked his own question the minute Mingyu picked up the phone. "What's your opinion of Joshua hyung?"

Seokmin was on the bus, on his way to work. After his conversation with Minghao last evening, he was determined to carry on his ‘experiment’ to see if anyone else had anything additional to say about Joshua. Soonyoung had been out for most of the night, having complications at work, so Seokmin had been left pondering who else he could ask in order to gather evidence for his experiment.

And so, he’d landed on Mingyu. Mingyu had weird opinions on everyone. He also had weird stories to tell about stuff he’d experienced with them, making him the perfect person to ask about the weirdly elusive nature of Joshua.

"Wait. What?"

“What’s your opinion of Joshua hyung?” Seokmin repeated. “Like, what do you think about him?”

“He’s… cool?” The confusion was radiating from Mingyu’s voice in waves. “Seokmin. I have to leave for work in fifteen minutes and you’re calling to ask what my opinion of Joshua is?”

“Okay, but what else?” Seokmin pressed, decidedly ignoring Mingyu’s rhetorical question. “Is that it? Joshua hyung is ‘cool’?”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a cool guy,” Mingyu said, somehow sounding even more confused than before. “Uh, he’s really bad at bowling too?”

Cool. Nice. They were essentially synonyms when it came to describing personality, weren’t they? Seokmin frowned, staring out of the window contemplatively while Mingyu continued rambling on.

But there were nuances to the descriptions, something that made the two words ever so slightly different. Joshua was this ‘generally good’ person, enigmatic in the sense that he had this base niceness on which he altered certain parts of his personality to fit everyone else he was talking to.

“Would you say Joshua hyung is likeable?” Seokmin asked then, talking over the stream of Mingyu’s voice.

“What?”

Seokmin rolled his eyes. Mingyu was going deaf. “I said—”

“Look, I really gotta pee, but how about you talk to Wonwoo hyung for a bit? Ask him all the, uh, other stuffs about Joshua you wanna talk about.”

And then there was shuffling on the other end of the line, and another voice filled Seokmin’s ears.

“Seokmin?”

“Wonwoo hyung!” Seokmin immediately brightened. This could be another person to ask for his experiment. “Will you help me with an experiment?”

“Experiment?” Wonwoo asked. “What’s the hypothesis?”

Hypothesis? “Uh, none,” Seokmin said. “I’m just trying to gather… opinions?”

Wonwoo hummed. “Well, okay. What do you wanna ask?”

“What’s your opinion of Joshua hyung?”

There was a slight pause, and Seokmin looked up to realise that his stop was fast approaching. After a moment, Wonwoo let out a laugh, a rumbly exhale of air that showed he was mildly amused by Seokmin’s question.

“Why are you so interested in our Joshua hyung, Seokmin?” he asked.

His voice was distinctly teasing, sounding like he was almost laughing at him, and it was the same sort of tone as the look in Minghao’s eyes last evening, where they both gave Seokmin the feeling like they had found out something about him, even though there was nothing to find out. It made Seokmin want to roll his eyes and vehemently deny whatever they were suggesting, but he didn’t even know what they were suggesting, and it would only prove to them that he actually was whatever they were saying, and he didn’t want that.

So, instead of answering, Seokmin chirped, “Oh! I gotta get off the bus now! What a shame. Good luck at work today, and send my virtual fist-shaking to Mingyu too!” before promptly hanging up.

Wonwoo’s laughter still rang in his ears as he stepped off the bus, looking confusedly down at his phone as he walked down the street.

Everyone was acting like Seokmin was the weird one for his question. And okay, maybe it was weird to immediately start a conversation with “What’s your opinion on our friend?”, but it wasn’t overly weird. No weirder than how no one seemed to know that much about Joshua which, in Seokmin’s opinion, was the weirdest thing of all.

───────────── ‘✷,

“You’re the weirdest thing of all,” Seungkwan said, and Seokmin wondered yet again why they ever let this little gremlin into their apartment.

“Uh huh,” Seokmin glanced at Seungkwan as the younger followed him into the bathroom while he rummaged for a spare toothbrush. “Says you, Kwan.”

Seungkwan was staying over at their apartment again. Well, it was more of Seungkwan was invading their apartment because he couldn't be bothered to go back to his own after they'd gone out for brunch with Jihoon and Seokmin was too nice to say no and kick him out, but it was the same thing.

“Seriously! I can't believe you refused his offer,” Seungkwan said, and Seokmin groaned.

“Can you please drop it?”

“Never,” Seungkwan declared, and stationed himself in front of the bathroom door, blocking his escape out of the room. “How many times have I said it? You have an ethereal voice, hyung! And how am I just finding out that Jihoon hyung himself offered to pull a few strings to get you signed to a label if you wanted to?”

Seokmin simply shrugged, and bodily shoved himself past Seungkwan. The younger wasn't nearly half as intimidating as he thought, especially when Seokmin knew he could probably throw Seungkwan over his shoulder without batting an eye. The guy was ridiculously light.

“I don’t know why hyung brought it up at today’s brunch,” Seokmin said, walking out of the bathroom and into the kitchen. “Besides, that was ages ago. I like teaching.”

"But hyung, you could've been famous!" Seungkwan protested. "Like, really famous! I can imagine you already: heartthrob idol Seokmin whose face is plastered all over designer brand advertisements and lands male-lead acting roles in his spare time." He said the last part dramatically, hands in the air like he was creating an imaginary banner with those exact words. "What do you think?"

Seokmin laughed, opening up a cupboard and pulling out a packaged toothbrush. "I think I would have hated it," he said, turning back to Seungkwan. "Singing for my job, for all those people…" He shook his head. "I don't think I would have liked that."

Seungkwan whined. "Come on, hyung, you're as much of an attention seeker as me! You'd have loved it!"

"No," Seokmin replied simply, smiling. "It would give me anxiety more than anything, I think." He pushed the toothbrush into Seungkwan's hands, forcefully trying to change the subject. "Anyway, here! New toothbrush. Thank Soonyoung hyung for that one, because I'm pretty sure that it's from his pile of spare ones."

Instantly, Seungkwan's eyes lit up, lifting up the bright orange toothbrush. "Thanks, hyung! The other one you gave me was getting really, really damaged."

Seokmin hummed amusedly. "What were you doing with it? Scrubbing your teeth to death?"

Seungkwan continued chattering, the previous subject now forgotten, as they walked back out of the kitchen.

It was something that the younger brought up, a lot, whenever he remembered it. The idea of Seokmin becoming a singer, or a musical theatre actor, or something along those lines was something that Seungkwan was weirdly passionate about, adamant that Seokmin had a voice that was being unjustly hidden from the world.

But, well. Seokmin didn't want to. Singing was simply stress relief for him, saved for unhinged karaoke nights and when he walked around their empty apartment while Soonyoung was out. Professions involving music were for people like Soonyoung and Seungkwan and Jihoon, who healed people with their dance or their songs, who touched people’s hearts with the beauty of their music.

It wasn’t a Seokmin thing, he thought. No matter what Seungkwan said, Seokmin was pretty sure his voice left much to be desired.

Besides, he liked teaching. Liked helping others, giving away parts of himself, seeing his children grow and flourish into beautiful beings under his instruction. Every child was different, and Seokmin adored being able to nurture each and every one of them until they learned to grow on their own.

He liked being a child’s inspiration, their support, being someone who could guide them in their lives. Helping others was, really, the thing he wanted to do the most.

“I’m not helping you memorise your lines,” he said, sitting down on the couch. “You have other friends, Seungkwan. And I’m busy! Do you know how many pieces of homework I still have to mark? Too many!”

Seungkwan groaned, flopping down next to Seokmin. “Come on, they’re all busy too! And no one is as fun. Can’t you help me practise? Please?”

There was the sound of the front door clicking open, and Seokmin lifted his head up. “Hey, ask Soonyoung hyung! I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to help you.”

“He won’t,” Seungkwan complained. “He never goes over my lines with me. See? Look at the way he walks into the room. He's practically radiating 'I-won't-help-Seungkwan' vibes." Seungkwan waved. "Hi, hyung."

Soonyoung, weirdly, didn't even bat an eye, and hummed in greeting at Seungkwan before dropping his duffel next to the couch. He looked bewildered. “Seokmin, why have you been going round asking our friends what their opinion of Joshua hyung is?”

Seokmin choked as Seungkwan turned to stare at him, wide-eyed.

"You've been doing what?"

"Who—who told you?" Seokmin stammered, face heating up.

Soonyoung just shook his head, still looking lost. "Jeonghan hyung said that Joshua hyung said that Junhui said that Minghao and Wonwoo and Mingyu said that you asked them."

Seungkwan blinked. "Wait, what?"

Seokmin just groaned, covering his reddening ears and keeling over to the side so he could bury his face into the cushions. "Why would they expose me like that?"

"I'm just so confused," Soonyoung said, scratching his head. "What were you doing? Jeonghan said that Joshua's really confused too."

Seokmin groaned louder at that, and attempted to become one with the sofa.

Seungkwan looked between the two of them, wringing his hands in exasperation. "What has been going on?"

"Oh, Jeonghan hyung said that Joshua hyung said that—"

"No, I got that part," Seungkwan interrupted, waving his hands at Soonyoung. "Well. Kind of. But what happened?" He turned to Seokmin, slapping his back. "Why?"

Seokmin didn't answer, too busy wallowing into the upholstery. "Why does Jeonghan hyung always end up knowing?" he complained, rolling onto his back. "I asked Wonwoo hyung and Mingyu, like, last week. I stopped after that because hyung was suggesting something weird—"

"Jeonghan always ends up knowing everything—" Seungkwan pointed out.

"—and I don't even know what he was trying to suggest!" Seokmin carried on, flailing his hands towards the ceiling. "But it was weird, and Minghao looked at me weirdly too, like it wasn't completely normal to wonder why no one actually knows anything about Joshua hyung at all. So I dropped it! But now Yoon Jeonghan is involved and Joshua knows I was talking about him and now everything is awkward!"

He flopped over onto his front again, whining, and Seungkwan and Soonyoung exchanged equally baffled looks.

"Okay," Soonyoung said, "I don't know why you were doing that, but. Yeah. That's a bit weird."

"We know tons of stuff about Joshua hyung," Seungkwan added, waving the toothbrush around as he talked. "Like, he's bad at charades, leads the church choir, and he's someone with iron will to put up with Jeonghan hyung for so long!"

Seokmin mumbled something into the cushions again.

"I think you're thinking about hyung way too much," Soonyoung said, ruffling Seokmin's hair. "Is he your crush? The guy you couldn't get out of your brain?"

Seungkwan's eyes widened. "You have a crush on Joshua hyung?"

"I don't!" Seokmin yelped, and sat up so fast that his head spun a little. "I was just telling you how we know nothing about him. How can you have a crush on a guy you don't know?"

"It happens all the time," Soonyoung said solemnly, and Seungkwan nodded in agreement.

Seokmin looked at them, before pouting and crossing his arms, huffing. "Joshua hyung's just… really slippery, you know? I can't understand him, and I just kind of want to."

Soonyoung wiggled his eyebrows at that, with the exact same glint in his eyes as Minghao had had, and Seokmin groaned again, pushing him away and standing up from the sofa.

"You two are insufferable," he said, backing out of the living room. He pointed a finger accusingly at them. "Hyung, I'm kicking you out. Seungkwan, I changed my mind, you're not allowed to sleep over. Give back the toothbrush."

"What? No! You gave it to me, it's mine now!" Seungkwan protested, clutching the still-packaged orange and black toothbrush to his chest. Soonyoung narrowed his eyes.

"Hey, wait, that looks a lot like the toothbrushes that I bought."

"Huh? Um, Seokmin brought it out for me—"

"Seokmin! Did you seriously give my spare tiger-coloured toothbrush to Seungkwan?"

───────────── ‘✷,

It had to be at least two in the morning by the time Seokmin managed to extricate himself from Seungkwan's grabby hands and tiptoe over Soonyoung's sprawled-out form to get to the front door and leave the apartment.

Seungkwan was a clingy sleeper, latching onto whoever was next to him, and Soonyoung liked to take command of the entire space wherever he slept. That was why, whenever Seungkwan stayed the night, they didn't normally all sleep in the same space, because someone was bound to either get poked in the eye or squeezed to death. But that night, they'd done it, on the floor of the living room, Soonyoung snoring almost directly into Seokmin's feet before he'd stood up and exited the room.

Seokmin didn't know where he was going, not really, but he'd felt an urge to leave the apartment and go somewhere on his own, and that was exactly what he was doing.

It wasn’t exactly cold, but the wind certainly felt a little vindictive at having discovered that there was still a living, breathing, thing walking down the streets in the middle of the night, and Seokmin tucked his hands into the pockets of his flimsy black jacket and wished that he’d put on trainers or something rather than just wearing a pair of sliders.

But even with the wind whispering displeasedly down his neck, Seokmin still thought that this was nice. The world was so… quiet. Like not a single thought was being uttered into existence.

It felt like Seokmin could scream the loudest thoughts into his brain and the silence of the night would simply let them fade away.

He hummed to himself as he walked down the street, walking across a road bridge before pausing, backtracking, and leaning against the railing to look down at the river below.

It was dark, even with all the street lamps and flashing store signs, but Seokmin could just make out the silhouette of a person sitting on a bench by the river. They weren't moving, and the longer Seokmin stared, the more his eyes adjusted to the dark and he thought, hm. That person looked familiar.

It was how he found himself going down a set of stairs beside the bridge, walking along the riverside until he drew closer to the person on the bench, their side profile becoming clearer, until he could make out a delicate, sloping nose and fluffy hair and he thought—well. The gods and their weird act of blessing his one specific wish had struck again.

"Hello," Seokmin said brightly, before wincing at how loud his voice sounded in the silence of the night. "Rather late for you to be outside, don't you think?"

Joshua turned his head at Seokmin's voice, and for a brief moment there was a golden sheen to his eyes that Seokmin didn't think he'd ever seen before, all melting and open and vulnerable before he blinked and smiled that cotton-fluffy smile which he always seemed to be smiling at Seokmin with these days.

(How did Joshua used to smile at him? Seokmin wasn't sure he knew.)

"Well," Joshua said, irises twinkling white-gold, "depends on how you think of it. Maybe it's too early."

Seokmin smiled, sitting down next to Joshua. "Fair enough."

Neither of them said anything more, the sound of the rushing water filling the air. The breeze was still ruffling Seokmin's hair, but it was less biting, as if it had softened, shy, at Joshua's presence.

Or maybe that was just Seokmin's own thoughts.

He glanced over at Joshua and had to blink rapidly, feeling like the wind had been knocked out of him because wow, Joshua was so pretty. There were few lamp posts along the river, and Joshua's face was lit up in a faint glow, his eyelashes creating gentle smudges against his cheeks every time he blinked. He didn't look at Seokmin, continuing to stare out at the dark river, and Seokmin wondered whether it was really fair that some people were able to look so beautiful while doing absolutely nothing.

Seokmin's friends were by no means bad looking either, and it was practically like a hazing ritual for them to all have had a crush on Mingyu for like a week before he opened his mouth and the crush instantly melted away.

But Joshua? Joshua was just… pretty. A mesmerising sort of pretty, where it looked like the tip of his nose was dusted with gold and his hair looked like a soft mess of clouds.

Seokmin had no idea how he hadn't noticed it before.

"—min? Seokmin?"

He blinked rapidly, muttering an eloquent "Huh?" while Joshua tilted his head amusedly.

Joshua laughed, a small bell-like sound, like he found Seokmin incredibly endearing. "Are you okay? You were spacing out on me there."

“Oh. Yeah,” Seokmin said after a long moment, after he’d managed to remember how words worked again. “Sorry. I’m just really tired, I think.”

“Tired?” Joshua asked. “Why aren’t you sleeping then?”

Seokmin just shrugged. “Can't. I don’t know, it just feels like I need to be out here.” He nudged Joshua with his shoulder. “What about you, hyung? Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“I don’t need sleep,” he said easily, leaning back against the bench. “Besides, it’s calming out here, don’t you think?”

It really was. There was an almost otherworldly beauty to things when one experienced them at night, and the tranquillity of the riverside would have probably had Minghao tearing up in awe, but Seokmin couldn't focus on all of that anymore.

Joshua really was always in his head, and while it was still a little weird, Seokmin didn’t mind it. There were worse people to have stuck in your head, after all, and Joshua was just so interesting to Seokmin, with his kindness and the subtle changing of colours in his personality whenever he talked to someone new. He could never really anticipate what Joshua would do next, and yet at the same time, everything he did was also so in character for him.

“So, how was your day today?” Joshua asked softly, and as he turned to look at Seokmin, his eyes were so gentle that it had his brain melting for a moment.

“It was okay,” he said, having to look away briefly. “Seungkwan is staying over with us tonight.”

“You have a guest?” Joshua said. “And yet you abandoned him?”

“Hey, Seungkwan’s properly knocked out. Soonyoung hyung and I will probably have to yell into his ear with a megaphone tomorrow to get him to wake up,” Seokmin said, and Joshua laughed.

“It sounds like you’ve done it before.”

Seokmin shrugged. “Seungkwan stays over a lot. He also oversleeps. A lot.”

“Well, he’s lucky that he has you to be more than willing to help him wake up,” Joshua said, chuckling. “It’s a wonder his eardrums are still intact.”

“From all the yelling he does, I’m surprised my eardrums are still intact,” Seokmin said, rubbing his ears. “At this rate, I’m gonna go deaf in like 5 years. But I guess I can’t really say anything,” he added thoughtfully, “because I’m too loud as well. It’s on my to-do list to try and be quieter, actually.”

Joshua hummed. “You want to be quieter?”

“Yeah.” Seokmin laughed a little. “Wow, I haven’t told anyone this before. But I guess… I’m just a really noisy person? I’m pretty sure it irritates people a lot. So I’m trying to be quieter these days. Like, not yelling all the time, you know? Unless I’m at school,” he said. “Because sometimes the children don’t quieten down unless you’re yelling your head off at them.”

He tried to play off the end as a joke, because Joshua was looking at him properly now, and the softness in his eyes hadn’t gone away but he looked more… serious.

“I don’t think you’re noisy,” Joshua said. “Maybe you talk a lot, but you’re saying things, things which are important.” He smiled a little. “Maybe what you say has varying degrees of importance, but it’s not gibberish. It’s not irrelevant.”

Joshua lifted his hand and brushed a finger over Seokmin’s cheekbone, so lightly and so briefly that if he’d blinked he would have missed it.

“You’re not noise, Seokmin. You’re important.”

Seokmin blinked, surprised by the sincerity in Joshua’s voice, his cheek stained red from where Joshua’s fingers had brushed against it. He took a shaky breath, scrambling to gather his rapidly-melting thoughts and managed to grin.

“Aw, hyung, I’m glad you think so," he said, brightly. "I still think I need to tone it down a little, though. Maybe it’ll encourage Soonyoung and Seungkwan to stop being so ear-splittingly loud as well.”

Joshua didn’t say anything for a short moment, before letting out a quiet sigh. “Alright. I bet those two get into screaming matches every other day, though, so it might take a while.”

Seokmin laughed at that, thinking about what had happened only a few hours ago with Soonyoung's toothbrush. “They do, they really do.”

He turned back to Joshua again, and found the elder to already be watching him, a slight smile on his face. “What’s the most ridiculous thing they fought over?” Joshua asked, and smiled wider when Seokmin immediately launched into the tale of ‘Soonyoung and Seungkwan and the Plate of Biscuits’.

The wind ruffled Joshua’s hair and nipped at Seokmin’s nose, but neither of them seemed to care as they sat by the river, a small smile permanently on Joshua’s face as he listened to Seokmin talk.

Seokmin left only when the sun had begun to rise in the sky, looking back at Joshua still on the bench, watching the way the dawn painted his face orange-gold and made him look like a bronze statue of some ancient, beautiful deity.

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